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Urban Geography: Why We Live Where We Do - Wendover Productions

Interesting video, albeit it is quite generalizing. Europe does have the rich suburbs as well; people drive by car although the price for petroleum gas is high. This is reasoned for instance by the fact that many young middle and high class couples want to raise their children in a "village lookalike" environment. Also, the city is seen as noisy and polluted (due to the high density).

@kipate There might be a bit of generalizing. However, the current data (statistics from 2005 on) still show that wealthy Europeans still desire the city centers more than in America. European villages are still small area villages, whereas America is still dominated by the homestead development outside of cities w/fewer towns. However, everything else about the spread of American cities through the use of transportation, streetcars, homestead and what not is not a generalization in the slightest. Kipate, have you ever been to America? Almost 100% of this videos theories on American cities are correct and exactly the phenomenon we study in American Urban planning, not Urban Planning but specifically American Urban Planning. In Geography and planning school, Euro and American planning are not taught at the same time and in conjunction with each-other.

@Kurtis Edwards I am not saying that the distribution in Europe is the same as in the US. I am only stating that there are metropolitan areas in Europe as well that have lots and lots of rich people living outside the core.

There is also another explanation about the higher density in those European cities : a smaller surface of the city itself : Paris 105 km² , Athena 38... and New York 1214. For example: Berlin and London are larger and so not that dense, and if you take only Manhattan and not all the city : the density is very high, as Paris.

@Clemech4 , that is another good point, but first, New York has 1,200 sq km of area, but only 790 sq km of land (otherwise it may be hard to compare Paris and New York City).

It is worth noting that Europe does not have a common ground when it comes to the division of land area. For example, in France, the core cities of a metropolitan area mostly cover only a small area, whilst the suburbs are a lot larger. In Germany, the (former) suburbs are nowadays often integrated into the city.

Also, I dislike the use of special cities as representants for the average city of each region (US and Euope) when it comes down to comparing US cities with European cities. Neither New York City nor Paris come close to the average city.

Paris has been the capital of France for centuries, and any monarch, any president, sponsored at least one monument/megaproject. In the late 19th century, the city's design even was dramatically changed by Haussmann.

New York City has been a peripherical city for at least two centuries, new immigrants to the US have arrived there first, and many stayed, so the social history has been quite different to the average US city. And NYC was also dramatically changed in the late 19th century (block buildings of five storeys, urban plan for the Central Park in Manhattan, ...). And contrarily to the video's argument, NYC does have many elites living in the downtown (Manhattan) area (if you want to speak of a core and periphery).

I fully understand that one cannot have the number one average city for each region, but at least one should not take any unique city and claim it to be close to the average. For example, a city like Nuremberg could be a fine representant for Germany, and also, to a lesser extent, for Europe. And a city like Charlotte probably reflects the US city better than New Yor City.

I think the video clearly refers to the historical differences. Rich suburbs in Europe are a XX century thing and they appeared because the change in lifestyle. As the video explains America's rich suburbs had a different origin and they date back to the railway expansion days. While we still drive cars, we don't do it as much as Americans. Not to mention our cars are smaller in size and engine and we depend on public transport much more than them. New Yorkers use the subway a lot, but you couldn't say in general Americans use public transport as much as we do here.

Both of those graphs still show a higher concentration in city centers. (funny, the London graph follows the seasonal movings of the royal family. hahaha)

But, listen, I do completely agree with you. The stuff on Europe in this video is a bit of a generalization (lots of you want lawns, front yards, backyards, or even a parking spot instead of half-way up the sidewalk.. hahaha) however, a solid portion of what they are saying of American cities is not. As well, you kind of have to generalize historical/temporal stories, otherwise your subject matter will get lost in the history.

All, again, I stress, using New York City as an American example is completely off-base. New York City is very much larger in population than any other American city. In fact, I believe our three most major below do not add up to its population (not entirely sure and I am not about to smother you with graphs to overly prove my point).

Interesting fact, a nation having an 'alpha-urban concentration zone' is common worldwide in almost every nation; the majority of countries have one large city that dwarfs the others in population. I've always loved that fact about historical population distribution. It's fun reading different theories on why.. some say because of politics.. some say economics, some say war and history.. each story is kinda fun.

Oh, American cities are f'n huge in land size, too. It's ridiculous.... It is used for politics and census dollars. Annex, annex, annex. In all honesty, even a city with a population of per say 45,000, which is quite moderate; I bet most American cities with similar populations wouldn't fit our map size in XL. For instances, it's common to take a mile stretch and break it into 12 blocks... 12 to me is so few and ends up stretching the hell out of a city. So when I do it in my American Cities XL cities... it's not by choice. HAHAHA